CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER TWO

Marie got home at 5:15 and instantly popped open the bottle of cabernet sitting on her kitchen counter. She poured herself a tall glass and sat on the couch. After taking the first large sip, she texted Chris and asked if he was available to come over. She honestly wasn’t expecting him to accept; Chris had been drowning in work lately. But because he loved his job, he did not mind the drowning.

Oh man, how awesome it must be to love your job,

she thought.

She was pretty sure Chris knew how deeply she cared about him. It was scary to her because she’d only ever been in love one other time and it had ended badly. So now, to be dating a man whom she strongly believed might be “the one” (and God, how she hated that term) was a little terrifying.

Still, there were moments when they were together where she felt like a smitten high school freshman. She wondered if that was mainly because Chris, though pushing forty and showing it, had a wildly immature streak. He played Fortnite all the time and went to comic book conventions. She supposed it made him good at his job—a game designer and programmer for several different mobile game companies.

He had been the one constant anchor in her life over the past year, aside from her job. Before Pampered Paws, she’d spent several years as a vet’s assistant and he’d been there to cling to when that had fallen through. He was also always good for a laugh, was an extremely good kisser, and genuinely seemed to enjoy trying to make her happy.

She was surprised when Chris responded to her text right away. He even used a few emojis and exclamation marks, which was a rarity. Apparently, he was in a good mood, which meant he’d had a good day at work.

As she waited for Chris to arrive, Marie remained on the couch with her wine and tried not to fixate on the one single thing she’d miss about her job.

Plain and simple, it was the money.

Honestly, what Deandra had paid her wasn’t very much. It was barely above minimum wage. But the tips were often ridiculous. Yes, there was a fair share of tightwads, but there were also a few who enjoyed throwing their money around, trying to remind the rest of the world that they were superior. Even after Deandra got her twenty percent from every tip, Marie had taken home a decent chunk of cash every other week.

But now that was gone. She tried not to be terrified about it, but the fear seemed to grow with every minute.

She went into the kitchen and tried to scrounge up something for dinner—something she could make quickly. Chris had a weird work schedule and, as such, a hectic meal schedule so she never knew when he was hungry. Going with a safe stand-by, Marie boiled some water for pasta and poured some sauce into a pan. She had it all going while waiting for Chris to show up, scrolling through Facebook as she stood by the counter. She’d stir the pasta, sip her wine, and scroll. Stir, sip, scroll, repeat.

She was only partly paying attention to the status updates and memes she saw. Her mind was still on what she’d done today. She was glad to be rid of the job; knowing she’d never have to see Deandra again was enough of a reward. She also would not miss listening to clients talk about how long—to the centimeter—their dog’s ear hair should be. Plus, the scary sort of future she was facing allowed her to reflect back on dreams she’d pretty much packed away for good.

She’d wanted to own and operate a bed-and-breakfast since the age of seven. She’d turned her bedroom into Marie Fortune’s Big Bright Bed-and-Breakfast. She welcomed her parents and her sister to stay over, pampering them with fake plastic food and pretend pots of tea, giving them extensive tours of the four corners of her bedroom and the closet. She’d left little hand-printed suggestion cards for her “guests” when they left.

But as she got older and understood the costs and the time involved in a dream like that, her parents had urged her to look into something more promising. They pointed out that she’d always had a way with animals and suggested veterinary school. And while she was not in love with the idea, she figured it was a career that would make her happy.

Even when she started college, that original dream had remained.

Now, though, the closest she got to that dream was watching those home renovation shows on TV.

What happened to me?

Before she could traipse down that depressing little road, there was a knock at her door.

She answered it at once and wrapped her arms around her boyfriend, Chris, as he entered. They kissed lingeringly for a moment. When she broke it, Chris looked at her with a rather surprised expression.

“And hello to you, too,” he said.

“Sorry. It’s just…whoa boy, it’s been a day.”

“Never apologize for jumping me the moment I come in the door,” he said. “As a matter of fact, if you want to keep it going…”

He nodded beyond the living room and kitchen area, toward the bedroom. It was hard to say no. He was looking exceptionally good today. She assumed he’d had a meeting with an investor because his hair was actually not a mess and he was wearing a button-down and khakis as opposed to his usual tattered jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt.

“No time,” she said. “I’ve prepared a very intricate dinner.”

Chris peered into the kitchen and saw the prepared spaghetti. “No man should ever turn down spaghetti,” he said. He kissed her on the brow and added: “Bad day, huh?”

Suddenly, she wasn’t so sure about telling him about what she had done. What was he going to think? Had she been rash? Maybe a little immature?

“Pretty rough, yeah.”

“Hmm. Yeah, that stinks.”

It wasn’t a very deep or meaningful response for a thirty-six-year-old, but Chris seemed perpetually tired. He hardly ever slept and on the few occasions he’d slept over at Marie’s place, the only things she’d really learned about him were that he snored incredibly loud and in the mornings, when he was done eating cereal, he left the bowl with the milk still in it on the side of the sink like some barbarian.

“It

does

stink,” she agreed.

“Want to eat and tell me about it?”

“Sure.”

They piled up their plates and ate at the small table in her dining area between the living room and kitchen.

“Before we get into my own private slice of hell, how was your day?” she asked.

“It was all right,” Chris answered. “Been working from home for three weeks now, so that’s pretty sweet.”

Again, not the sort of vocabulary you expected from a man his age. Writing and building mobile games where people blew up cars or ran after gold coins in an endless loop had likely started to rub off on all other areas of his life.

“What game are you working on right now?” she asked.

As usual, he went deep into the details of what he was currently doing. He loved his job; the passion with which he talked about it was one of the things Marie loved about him. When he was done, he asked about her day. But it almost seemed like he was running on autopilot.

“Today was a weird one for me,” she replied. “Out of nowhere, I started thinking about when I was a kid, and all the things I wanted to do, you know? Did I ever tell you about Marie’s Big Bright Bed-and-Breakfast? That was the dream.”

“I thought you wanted to be a vet.”

“That was the grown-up dream. The dream my parents sort of steered me toward. The bed-and-breakfast thing was the pipe dream from childhood… Ah, God. Chris…I quit my job today.”

There it was. Random, and out in the open.

“For real?”

“Yeah.” She was waiting for some sort of admonishment, of how she was almost forty and without a job.

“Good for you,” he said. “That place sucks.”

Again, she sometimes wished he didn’t talk like a frat boy. Sensing that he wasn’t going to have much to say, she went on. “I know I should be scared. And I am…just not much.”

“Yeah, sure,” Chris said. He was slurping up some spaghetti and pulling his phone toward him.

“Like I was saying, it made me think about my old dreams. And that got me thinking about my dad and losing him…which, I guess, was the start of letting go of those dreams. But I can’t blame my family, you know? Boo-hoo, my dad died and my mom mysteriously disappeared a few years before that. I had to leave college to pick up the ruins of my dad’s business. Cry me a river, right?”

He nodded, still cramming down the spaghetti. He looked very distracted and, worst of all, maybe like he didn’t really want to be there.

“Chris!”

“What?”

“Are you even listening?”

“Of course. I—”

His phone vibrated as a text came in. He slid the phone over to him and started typing in a reply. This, she assumed, was work-related. She’d only ever seen this level of distraction once before. She hadn’t liked it then, and it did not paint a pretty picture of the rest of their night.

The little spike of anger that went through her felt like poison. But it was a good poison—like chugging a Red Bull or getting excited at the idea of another Marvel movie. The anger was some raging multi-tentacled monster grabbing every nerve inside of her. She wasn’t asking for a deep conversation; she just needed his ear, the attention of the man she loved.

“So today,” she went on, “this golden retriever showed me this video where he’d beaten Ninja at Fortnite.”

Chris finally looked up. His eyebrows were arched and he looked quite confused. “What did you say?”

“Exactly.” Marie took her plate to the sink and then refilled her wine.

“What’s wrong, Marie?”

“I just sat there talking to you for about three minutes and you didn’t bother even looking up from your phone until I said something about Fortnite.”

“Well yeah…because you never talk about Fortnite.”

“I know. I’m a thirty-nine-year-old woman. Why would I?”

He sighed, gave her a heavy look, and got to his feet. “Got to go to the bathroom.”

Got to sidestep this minefield of a conversation,

was what the comment sounded like to Marie.

“You know what?” she called out as he went down the hallway to the toilet. “I wouldn’t even have let you visit Marie’s Big Bright Bed-and-Breakfast!”

“The…the what?” he called back.

“The toast was a little stale, but the tea always tasted like flowers!”

“Marie, are you okay? If you need—”

“Ah, just go to the bathroom already!”

The quiet closing of the bathroom door a few seconds later signified that he was doing just that. Marie let out a single tear and wiped it away.

Before she had time to consider his odd behavior, his phone buzzed again. She didn’t even hesitate when she picked it up. She saw the beginning of the message on his locked screen. The message was not from a saved contact, but the area code was local. What Marie could see read:

Not gonna stay up all night, but I’ll leave the door unlocked if you…

That was all the preview would allow her to see. It was enough, though. The heartbreak that quickly followed this urge swept her up.

Unable to resist, Marie unlocked Chris’s phone. She’d watched him enter it from over his shoulders a few times so had no trouble getting in. She went directly to the message and found a very long thread above the new message. The messages were short, but they got across a very explicit and well-detailed story.

She was still reading through it when Chris returned to the table. Seeing what she was doing, he didn’t bother to sit back down. Marie looked up at him and used every bit of her will power and inner strength not to cry.

Instead, she tossed the phone over to him where it clattered on his side of the table.

“Who is she?” Marie asked.

“Why are you reading my messages?”

“Why is a woman with a local area code leaving her door unlocked for you tonight?” she countered. “And, for that matter, several other nights in the last few weeks.”

He knew he was caught. She could see it in his face, in the way his eyes seemed to search her apartment for some way out.

“Marie…it’s just…it’s nothing serious.”

“Oh, it sounds like something very serious. Maybe not emotionally, but certainly physically. Who is it?”

“A woman that works for the new gaming company we took on last month.”

“Were you going to ever tell me or just keep it up?”

He carried his plate to the sink and then sized her up. His posture straightened and he took on an authoritative tone.

“I don’t see the big deal.”

“What? Are you kidding me?”

“Marie…times are changing. We’re almost forty. And relationships are different today, you know? I don’t see the problem. What’s wrong with having two girlfriends?”

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard all day. And believe me, I heard some stupid stuff at work.”

“But she—”

“Get out, Chris.”

“Marie, just hear me out.”

“Oh, I did. And I heard enough. “Now

get out

!”

There were about a million things she wanted to say, but she let them all go. He was already at the door before she could even think of putting words to all of it. It almost looked as if he

wanted

to go.

When he closed the door, he did so softly. But as far as Marie was concerned, it had the same impact as if he’d slammed it.

She stared at the door for a moment, fighting away tears, and wondered if this wretched day could get any worse.

As soon as she put the thought out there, her phone rang.

The number on her cell phone was not one she recognized. Not even the area code was local. She answered it, fully expecting it to be a wrong number.

“Hello?”

“Hi. Is this Marie Fortune?” It was a male voice, very stern and official-sounding.

“It is.”

“Ms. Fortune, this is Deputy Miles with the Winscott County Police.” His tone was sort of dry and wavering. It was strange because she knew what sorts of calls these usually were but she had no family in the area.

Unless it’s…

Her heart sagged for a moment, waiting to get confirmation.

“I’m so sorry to tell you that your Aunt June has passed away.”